


Tuning Out

by FaiaHae



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Escaping your problems in virtual reality, Extreme Weather, F/F, In which Etheria is a massive online world, Virtual Reality
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-08-28 07:12:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16718776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FaiaHae/pseuds/FaiaHae
Summary: Things haven't been good in the real world, so the population has elected to ignore them and spend all of their time in Etheria- a virtual reality landscape and system that encompasses business, sports, and social life.Adora spends her time in Etheria as She-Ra: top of the scoreboards, shooting champion, number 1 at anything she puts her mind to, with only Catra as any real competition. Adora doesn't know if She-ra has brought her closer to her former friend or pushed her further away, or how long they're going to be able to run from reality.





	1. Giving it your best shot

Adora and Catra hadn’t seen each other in years, but that didn’t stop them from arguing. Viciously.

 

Every.

Single.

Day.

 

Glimmer groaned, pulling a pillow over her face as she let the sea of clouds lap over her feet.

“Bow, can I ask you something?”

 

Voices carried from across the clouds, from the tiny floating island that housed the shooting rink.

 

_ That was a lousy cheat shot and you know it! _

_ Oh, I’m sorry, some of us have to use ricochet because they don’t have massive beefy biceps- _

_ You have just as much muscle as I do! _

_ And I had to work for it! You were practically born beefy and gorgeous- _

 

“Yeah?” Bow rolled onto his stomach, playing a bit with the sand as he kicked up the mist around his ankles.

 

“Why don’t they just give it up and date already? And more importantly, why are we here listening to them?”

 

Bow shrugged.

 

“Because you’re insider trading in the gambling rink?”

 

Glimmer pulled the pillow off, frowning at the sky. As she glared, a cloud glitched.

 

“Ah. Right.”

 

She lifted her hand and flicked her fingers, bringing up a digital overlay that hung in the air over her face.

 

Bow sighed.

 

“Can’t you just use a tablet? You’re ruining the illusion.”

“Pretend I have magical technology powers.”

 

Glimmer flicked through screens, pulling up the betting rink on one side and the current shooting scoreboard on the other. There was a tiny green ‘ _ match in progress’ _ , Adora and Catra’s current scores flicking up and up as the sounds of shooting (and shouting) carried on. Glimmer frowned. She’d bet on Catra. Adora was getting dangerously close to winning. 

“I mean, you do have magical technology powers. Pretty sure you’re not supposed to be able to teleport in the spa-server.”

 

“Speaking of. B-r-b.”

 

“You know you’re in voice chat. You don’t have to say-”

  
Glimmer disappeared in a poof of rainbow sparkles, and Bow just sighed.

 

“Right.”

 

Glimmer appeared behind Adora, who paused in her shooting to raise an eyebrow. Archery today, she noted. That explained the trick shots. 

 

“Catra, Adora’s current handheld background is of that time you fell asleep in the temple map.”

 

“It’s what?”

  
“GLIMMER!”

 

Glimmer disappeared again as Adora lunged for her, rejoining Bow and balancing a constructed tablet in her lap. Bow shot her a grateful look and she patted his head as she looked at the scores. Adora’s had dropped significantly as the distant yelling reached a pitch audible only to dogs.

 

“That was kind of cheap.” Bow didn’t sound terribly disapproving. He actually sounded kind of impressed. Glimmer shrugged, betting more credits on Catra.

 

“They’ll thank me someday.”


	2. Home

Catra signed out without another word after she’d taken She-ra’s number one spot. Adora sat on the steps to the shooting rink, looking out across the clouds. The sky wasn’t set to her time zone, and the light was far too bright for the dark that she knew would be waiting outside.

 

There was a faint whirr, a smell like ozone, and Glimmer was on the steps next to her. She didn’t jump. She was long used to it by now. 

 

Glimmer whistled a tune for a minute, waiting to see if Adora would say anything, and when she didn’t, she looked at her watch.

 

“Getting kind of late, isn’t it?”

Adora nodded, but made no move to leave.

 

Glimmer pressed against her side, resting her head on her friend’s shoulder.

“You know you’re welcome to come stay with Bow and I-”

“I can’t. You know I can’t.”

 

Adora stood, as Glimmer knew she would, and pulled up the logout menu. 

 

“One of these days, ‘dora?”

 

Adora hesitated, her finger over the logout, and then smiled over her shoulder.

  
“One of these days.”

 

She-Ra logged off.

  
_____

 

Adora came back to physical reality with a slow pounding headache and a pain in her back. She adjusted, swinging her legs off the car-seat where she’d been laying and making her way into the back of the truck. She pulled her hair up, back over the chip in her neck, and pushed open the back doors: ignoring the blast of heat, and squinting up into the sky.

 

The smog hung too heavy to really make out where the moon was, and in the dark, the desert stillness was almost absolute. In the distance there was the faint fluorescence of the town she’d left last night, and in the other direction, the slow blue flash of the air-signal on top of the old monitoring station. 

 

She looked towards the monitoring station. They’d been closed years ago- the early days of the climate crisis before Etheria had been introduced, the cities had walled themselves off, and the population had ceased to live in the world they were destroying. They hadn’t been open since. 

 

But they’d had lots of tech designed to track and stop the storms...and...

 

Adora sighed, pulling the doors shut and heading towards the driver’s seat.

 

And it wouldn’t be the first time she’d broken through a government facility. 

 

Probably wouldn’t even be the last.


	3. Player 2

The security system didn’t let out so much as a beep as Adora tossed a rock over the fence. She decided to up the anti- winding up and then throwing a rock directly at one of the cameras.

 

Her aim paid off- the camera shattered.

 

Nothing. 

 

No alarms, not so much as the whir of the other cameras readjusting to cover the blindspot. All was still. She hummed, nudging the fence with the rubber toe of her boot and listening for the hum of an electrified fence. 

 

The only sound was the city far away- a distant echo. 

 

She climbed the fence. 

 

__

 

The hallways posed no more obstacles then the the cameras had, and even though Adora was reluctant to let her guard down, she’d stopped looking back over her shoulder by the time she reached the center of the complex.

 

“Oh, No. Ohno nonono-”

 

She stepped into the gutted room, running her fingers through her hair and pulling out strands as she took in the pools of rainwater from the holes in the ceiling- hail, surely- the rusted electronics with ripped open panels and missing wires. She’d bet money all the copper wires were missing. 

 

She hissed through her teeth. Calm Down. Try to think. 

 

She couldn’t fix this.

 

She bent, examining the torn wires as she tried to think of a solution. Was it foolish to even hope that the Pre-eternia tech had anything to do with weather modification? These were climate waystations...but....

 

She huffed. She had to try.

 

But who knew how to fix this?

 

Bow?

 

Adora drummed her fingers on the counter. She really didn’t want to ask Bow or Glimmer for help with this. They were safe- In one of the sheltered cities, away from the ocean- and she couldn’t bring them out here.

 

...Eternia had a hardware build contest. Usually it was to hire new mechanics for the servers, but...

 

She sat, crossing her legs and tapping her password on the back of her neck.

 

...the winner last year had turned down the job offer, and her rebuttal had been so flippant that she’d made the news.

 

_ I’m just here to work on my tech, i’m not interesting in hiding in cyberspace. Eternia’s got the best tech around, of course! And i’d love to work with it, but you all think too small. _

 

...What was her name?

 

Adora pulled up Eternia in overlay mode, not quite relaxed enough to keep her eyes off the door. 

 

Adora might not be able to contact celebrities for independent projects, but...

 

**Welcome, She-Ra**

 

**> Search**

Contact information for the hardware prodigy who denied Eternia Employment Offer

 

**> Result: Entrapta**

 

**> Send message?**

 


	4. Loyalty

Catra prided herself on her ability to sneak up on Adora, but today, it had just been too easy. She wasn’t even fully loaded in, the lower half of her body translucent as she used the face-cam. 

 

So she was sure to get  _ extra _ close before she spoke.

 

“So a little bird told me-”

 

Adora  _ screamed. _

 

Her mike popped, and Catra had to resist the impulse to load out just to get that god awful  _ sound  _ out of her skull. 

  
“Jeez, will you take it down a couple thousand notches? It’s just me.”

 

Urgh, her chest twisted with how fast Adora relaxed. They were on..okay terms, sure, but not  _ that  _ good.  Not enough that her presence should be a comfort, or something. Ew.

 

Adora seemed to remember herself, tensing again.

 

“What are you doing here?”

 

Ah, right. She was here for a reason. Almost forgot.

 

“Entrapta’s working late today. She wanted me to relay her acceptance and to get your info. We’re grounded at work.”

 

Adora looked startled and maybe a tad....upset?

 

Jealous. Hehehe. Catra would love to wring that expression out of her more, but Entrapta was too oblivious. Too easy, and....well. Honestly, too likely to pan out and push Adora away. Urgh. She didn’t wanna care. 

 

“Relax, ‘Ra, we’re coworkers.”

 

She didn’t mention she was still working for their foster mother. It curled like a vice in her chest to still be stuck, but at least Entrapta and Scorpia enjoyed the job. 

 

Speaking of....

 

Catra checked her nails, feigning nonchalance.

 

“I got some manpower for this job of yours.”   
  


“I don’t need-”   
  


Catra raised an eyebrow, and Adora spluttered to silence. She never could stand it...not the time to think like this.

 

“You contacted Entrapta about a chance to refurbish some pre-rev tech. And don’t look at me like that- it’s not a betrayal, she was just excited about it. So if I know you- and lets be real- I do. You’re in the desert, alone, having bitten off way more then you can chew without so much as a strength body-mod in some noble attempt at saving the world. Have I got that right?”

 

The interesting shade of purple Adora was turning clarified that nicely, and Catra grinned. Got her.

 

“So send me your location, and I’ll see you on ground level tomorrow.”

 

“You- tomorrow? But don’t you have a-”

 

Catra waved her off again, trying to suppress her glee. 

 

“Oh please, I’ve wanted to blow this popsicle stand since I got this job. I had to physically restrain Entrapta from leaving when she got your message. Like, she didn’t know where you were, and when I reminded her of that she was  _ this close  _ to hacking her way into the network to manually get your location. Had to tell you I knew you to stop her. Anyway- send me a ping. I gotta get back.”

 

“You- I-”

 

Catra wiggled her fingers in a little wave, and turned on her heel and walked away, disconnecting mid step so she could take advantage of the bug that left a little afterimage Adora could try and dive for.

 

Heh.

 

Of course, once she was back on her feet in the break room, she had to let out a shaky breath and think about what she’d just agreed to. 

 

Fuck, was she really going to quit her job and go running back to Adora?

 

Her hands shook a little, and she clenched them. 

 

Yes.

 

She was. 

 

She took another breath to steady herself, then walked out onto the workroom floor. She had to get Scorpia. She couldn’t.... 

 

She took another deep breath, and it came in shakey and uncertain.

 

She-

“Hey, Catra, are you okay?”

 

She looked up (and up), still wheezing a bit. Scorpia’s brown eyes were bright with worry: Catra actually thought she might be  _ crying _ . Jeez. How’d she make friends with such a softie.

 

“I’m fine.”   
  


“Are you sure? You look like you’re having a panic attack, and that’s okay, I know it happens, but I just need to know so I can-”

 

“Jeez, man.” Catra huffed a laugh.

 

“Hey, I’m gonna.....” She took a deep breath. “I got a big ask. Got something to do. Don’t wanna do it alone.”

 

“Name it.” Scorpia grinned.

 

“...I’m leaving. Tomorrow. For the wastes. Entrapta took a job and it’s for Ad-....She-ra.”

 

Scorpia nodded, understanding.

  
“This the thing about the tech? She was talking about it.”

 

“Urgh. Hope she wasn’t talking too much. If she spreads the word too far-”

 

“-Someone may find out that my best employees were quitting without so much as a letter of resignation?”

 

Catra muttered some words that definitely weren’t work appropriate under her breath and tried to keep the air in her lungs as she turned around.

 

Fuck. At least it was Hordak and not  _ Ms. Weaver.  _ Of the two, she was honestly more scared of her foster....parent. If she could call her that.

 

“Sorry sir. It was short notice. I would submit a request for leave but I’m unsure about ...-when we’ll be back.” Don’t say if. Don’t say if. For the love of all that’s holy, don’t say if.

 

Hordak tipped his head. The scars on his face caught the light and he looked terrifying, but he hummed.

 

“Well, I suppose you have both completed your latest projects. May I consider you on indefinite leave?”

 

Catra’s words caught in her throat, so Scorpia stepped in.

 

“Of course sir. We’ll let you know if the situation changes.” Catra felt the squeeze of Scorpia’s prosthetic hand on her shoulder, and nodded.

 

“I take it you’re aware-”

 

“Of Entrapta’s departure as well, yes. She completed the new machine an hour ago. You are all free to go. I believe she’s waiting outside- you are welcome to one of the company vehicles, if you like.”

 

“Thank you sir.”

 

Catra waited till he was well out of airshot before she let out her breath in a wheeze.

 

“Fuck that.”

 

“What?”

 

She shrugged off scorpia’s hand, starting for the door.

 

“We’re taking my car. Shadow Weaver’s rigged the company ones.”

 

“You know that’s kinda rude to call your mom-”   
  
Catra rolled her eyes. They’d had this conversation a million times. “She’s not my mom. Come on.”

 

Scorpia sighed dramatically.

 

“You know, you never actually asked me to come with you.”

 

“My bad.” Catra kicked open the door to their shared room, shoveling things into her bag.

  
“Will you please come with me, my bestest friend?” 

 

Her voice was deadpan, but Scorpia’s face lit up.

 

“I would love to!”

 

Catra sighed. This was gonna be a  _ long drive. _

 

But at the end of it...Adora. Together again.

She hoped it went better this time. 

  
  
  



End file.
